FILM CLIPS / Also opening this week

Mick LaSalle, Carla Meyer, C.W. Nevius

Published 4:00 am, Friday, June 27, 2003

'THE HARD WORD'

Crime drama. Starring
Guy Pearce
,
Rachel Griffiths
and
Robert Taylor
. Directed by
Scott Roberts
. (R. 103 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
The films coming out of Australia continue to be interesting, taking American genres and funneling them through a national sensibility at once irreverent and penetrating. The latest from Down Under is "The Hard Word," whose entertaining mix of comedy and drama enlivens what might have been a routine crime movie.

Written and directed by Scott Roberts, the picture seems the conscious product of a filmmaker's decision not to let any moment be merely functional. A scene in which three brothers, newly released from prison, order breakfast in a restaurant is a good early example. Roberts uses the scene to demonstrate the discipline of Dale (Guy Pearce), the gentleness of Mal (Damien Richardson) and the perpetual turmoil surrounding Shane (Joel Edgerton). Their contact with the waitress is funny and also tense. Nothing bad happens, but it feels as though it might. Roberts knows how to keep an audience interested.

The three brothers are professional armed robbers, whose one rule is never to hurt anybody. They're hooked up with a sleazy lawyer (Robert Taylor), who has no rules -- he's just a self-interested creep, who is having an affair with Dale's wife (Rachel Griffiths). Some of the best scenes have to do with the affair. In one, Dale looks over at his wife and his lawyer, and the light almost dawns in his eyes. It's better than seeing a complete realization. The usually dark-haired Griffiths sports the bleached blond hair of a 1940s femme fatale here, a look that goes to the edge of parody, as does the film in general.

The thieves are truehearted, and the lawyer is diabolical. Out of these conflicting characters and interests, Roberts devises a story in which the fellows decide to do one last job with the lawyer -- who meanwhile has decided that this will be their last job, period. Nothing new or earthshaking here, but "The Hard Word" is tense and compelling, with the added charm of a mischievous spirit.

.

This film contains strong language, sexual situations and graphic violence.

Watching "The Heart of Me," it's tempting to imagine what might have been had the female roles been reversed -- if Helena Bonham Carter played the 1930s British society wife and coolly beautiful Olivia Williams the bohemian sister/home wrecker. But current cinema dictates that Bonham Carter ("Wings of the Dove," "Fight Club") play fire-within, offbeat women, and she does so again here, brown eyes blazing at society's constraints.

She's good at it, which is no surprise. Nor is anything else in this well- acted but rote drama better suited for British television than theaters. That each of the characters is to some degree duplicitous adds intrigue but also robs the audience of having anybody to root for.

But Paul Bettany, an actor best known for bouncy comedic turns ("A Beautiful Mind") certainly makes a case for his conflicted philanderer. Bettany emits a low rumble of contempt for this guy's gilded life, and a palpable yearning for his sister-in-law, whose family wants to marry her off to a stiff. In the film's most powerful scene, Bettany, heretofore perfectly mannered, spits to Bonham Carter, "You will not go through with this!" and she nods silently, delighted to have the lord of the manor take charge.

Williams ("The Sixth Sense") has less to work with, but her performance hints at the toll of maintaining appearances no matter what. She's particularly good in scenes with Bonham Carter, indicating a lifetime of suffering inflicted by this unconventional sibling, a burden even before she stole her husband.

The great pleasure in these kinds of pictures is the period detail, the burnished dinner parties and elegant parlors. Director Thaddeus O'Sullivan captures this aspect especially well in a scene where Bettany and Williams, clad in formal wear, converse while admiring their swank coupledom in the mirror. The moment reveals the vain pretense of their marriage and foreshadows turmoil.

Unfortunately, that turmoil becomes increasingly repetitive as convention conspires to keep the lovers apart. The key to movies like this is what goes unsaid, but too much gets left out here, at the expense of character. We never find out, for instance, why Bonham Carter's character would betray her sister in such a way. And if she's truly a '30s libertine, wouldn't she have strayed a little farther than her conservative brother-in-law? After all, Paris was just a boat trip away.

Listless, self-absorbed slackers stare into computer monitors, groan about their lives and moan during cyber sex in "On_Line." It makes you wonder, is there is a market for soft-porn movies for lonely geeks? Isn't that what computers are for in the first place?

John (Josh Hamilton, "The House of Yes") and Mo (Harold Perrineau, "The Matrix Reloaded"), former college roomies, run a live erotic Web site called Intercon-X. The kicker is that everyone is streaming video through digital cameras on their computers. Not only do they link up with live sex workers who fake orgasms (sex has rarely seemed so joyless and antiseptic), but they also chat online with their video faces filling the other person's computer screen.

The sight of the characters, walking around their barren apartments, holding a Webcam up to their noses like a mirror, tells you everything about these losers. It is all about them.

Especially John, who takes dazed and confused to a whole new level. Tippling peppermint schnapps and droning into his video journal about his sad, dreary life, John can't bring himself to shave, change clothes or keep his mouth from hanging open. Or maybe he could if he didn't keep getting distracted by another Web site and continuing his masturbation marathon.

He has that in common with everyone else in the movie. This is a group of people who never pass up a chance for some zipper diving. At least they are doing it with someone they love.

- This film contains graphic sex, profanity, drugs and violence.

-- C.W. Nevius

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